


Diminished

by CelticKnot



Series: Mass Effect Fictober 2019 [22]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types
Genre: Destroy Ending, Fictober 2019, Gen, MEFFictober2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 07:47:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21133178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelticKnot/pseuds/CelticKnot
Summary: MEFFictober Prompt: Rachni. The Reapers' sour yellow note has faded from the galaxy, but can there ever be peace?





	Diminished

The Song had become corrupted. What had begun as a strange dissonance, a single voice in the great chorus a bit out of tune, had swelled and strengthened into a sour yellow note that shook the Song to pieces. One by one, the sour yellow note had drowned out and swallowed up her children's voices. Their sweet harmonies had faded away, devoured by the Reapers' tuneless drone.

But then, with a mighty, discordant roar that shook the very foundations of the universe, that sour yellow note had been silenced. The resonance of the Galaxy itself was altered. What notes echoed back to her in the wake of the Crucible's blast were weak, subdued, hushed. Triumphant, yes, but sounding in counterpoint to that triumph was a deep, dark well of grief.

She was hesitant to share in the triumph, but the grief had its echo in her heart. Her children were so few now. The ones who'd fallen to the sour yellow note were now silent. They had been beyond saving.

Twice now, in only three short years, had her precious children been taken from her. She roared an angry fugue into the void, wondering for a moment if peaceful coexistence was even truly possible. Maybe it was time to die, and take her species with her. Oblivion was preferable to being taken and twisted into abominations.

But no, the sour yellow note that had twice corrupted her children was well and truly gone. Though the Song was quiet now, what remained was wholesome, natural. Harmonies and dissonances ebbed and flowed more or less peacefully, all the more tuneful as the survivors banded together to begin rebuilding.

The Galaxy had been cleansed. The Reapers would trouble no one anymore.

The Rachni Queen lay down with a sigh, and let the quiet Song soothe her to sleep.


End file.
